Ecosystems, water, and health: The multiple dimensions of natural infrastructure

Thursday 31 August
| 11.00-12.30
| Room: FH 307

Riccardo Mayer

Nature-based solutions for water are gaining traction, as communities, businesses and water resource professionals recognize these cost-effective, no-regrets approaches as an important part of the tool box for sustainable water management. Green infrastructure solutions for water, however, are also a powerful strategy for simultaneously addressing the complex ways in which water and health are intimately linked – freedom from disease, food security, physical and mental health, and, safety and resilience to climate change and other natural and human-caused disasters that threaten health. More innovative, water-focused, green infrastructure projects emerge each year, but for the most part these have not been strategically and systematically designed to take advantage of the potential to address water security while simultaneously providing transformative solutions for the inter-related challenges addressed in the Sustainable Development Goals. Can changing business as usual in the water sector be the catalyst for the kinds of integrated strategies needed for multiple benefit solutions that link ecosystems, water, and the multiple facets of human health?

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World Water Week is a conference organised by SIWI. The conference focuses on new thinking and positive action toward water-related challenges and their impact on the world's environment, health, climate, economic and poverty reduction.